Plans to build a new Lidl in Kingston Park could be signed off this week, despite the protests of two supermarket rivals.
Newcastle City Council will rule on Friday whether a Lidl can be built in Beaminster Way East, with the German discount retailer promising to create 40 jobs with the move. Under proposals that look set for approval ahead of a planning committee meeting, the new store would be built on the vacant former site of a HGV driver training centre next to the area’s existing B&M.
Both Tesco and Aldi have lodged objections against the Lidl development, however, claiming it would compete against existing supermarkets around Kingston Park and cause traffic problems.
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But council planning officers have rejected those concerns and recommended the plans for approval. They wrote in a report that the impact on rival shops are “not considered to be so harmful to warrant refusing the application” and that the Lidl “would not harm the vitality and viability of existing centres”.
While the council is said to have “significant concerns” of its own about the volume of extra traffic the supermarket would generate, Lidl has agreed to pay for upgrades to the nearby Brunton Lane roundabout – installing toucan and zebra crossings and changing the road’s layout. The report adds: “If the current arrangements are retained, the local highway authority have expressed significant concerns that the volume of traffic generated by the proposed use lead to capacity impacts on the local road network, and also that the current arrangements fail to deliver a safe environment for pedestrians to travel to the site, particularly those walking from the houses to the west of the roundabout. To address these impacts, it has been requested that the roundabout is upgraded as detailed above.”
Nine local residents have lodged objections against the plans, with one opponent saying that Kingston Park already has an “excessive number of shops that far exceed the needs of the locality” and pointing out that there already several other Lidl stores in Newcastle. Local councillor Alex Hay has objected on the grounds that extra traffic to the store could bring surrounding roads “to a standstill” and lead to greater air pollution.
In a submission on behalf of Tesco, which has a large store in Brunton Lane, Martin Robeson Planning Practice said the argument for opening the Lidl was “flawed” and that there had been “no rigorous examination” of other potential locations for it. Aldi, which had plans to build a new store of its own in Kingston Park in 2021, said that “limited consideration has been given to the likely increased pedestrian and cycle access and infrastructure” to serve the proposed Lidl.
Lidl’s planning application promises a “clean and contemporary design” for the supermarket, which would have a bakery and a 95-space car park, and says it would “improve the range and choice of the retail offer within the Kingston Park area, allowing residents to shop locally and sustainably”.
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